IV Files
Inventor 3D Graphics Files

These are some examples of IV files. IV is the abbreviation for "Inventor", a file format used on SGI with a variety of programs, and now shared with OpenInventor, the successor to Inventor.

IV File Characteristics:

• ASCII or binary
• Color
• 3D
• No compression
• 1 image

Reference:

1. Josie Wernecke,
   The Inventor Mentor,
   Programming Object-Oriented 3D Graphics with Open Inventor, Release 2,
   Addison Wesley, 1994,
   ISBN: 0201624958,
   LC: QA76.64.W48.
2. the SGI web site

Programs to view an IV file include:

• ivview on an SGI computer;

Programs to convert an IV file to another format:

• The C program ivcon can read an IV file and write it out in a variety of formats.
• The FORTRAN90 program ivread can read an IV file and write it out in a variety of formats.

Programs to convert another format to IV format:

• The C program ivcon can read a variety of 3D file formats and write out an IV file.
• The FORTRAN90 program ivread can read a variety of 3D file formats and write out an IV file.
• The C program ply_2_iv can read a PLY file and write out an IV file.
• The Visual Toolkit routine vtkIVExporter can export a VTK image to Open Inventor.
• The Visual Toolkit routine vtkIVWriter can write a VTK image to an Open Inventor file.

Sample IV Files:

• cube_texture.iv, a cube with texture;
• delaunay_refine.iv, a Delaunay refined mesh on a sphere;
• delaunay_refine2.iv, a Delaunay refined mesh on a sphere;
• diamond.iv, a dodecahedron;
• dodec.iv, a dodecahedron;
• fish_faces.iv, a fish drawn with polygonal faces;
• human.iv, a stylized human figure;
• materials.iv, a shape using different materials;
• polyfish.iv, a fish;
• soccer.iv, a truncated icosahedron;
• spheres.iv, a plot of 3 spheres, which helped me figure out how to plot a set of points;
• spiralpoints.iv, a spiral on a sphere;
• tetrahedron.iv, a tetrahedron;
• tiler_3d.iv;
• two_shapes.iv;
• windmill.iv, an animated windmill;

You can go up one level to the DATA page.